Hungary: Prosecutors seek removal of immunity for Mayor and two former Orbán ministers
Hungary's chief prosecutor has sought the removal of parliamentary immunity for Prime Minister Péter Mayor and two former ministers from Viktor Orbán's government.
First prosecutions against former members of Orbán governments in Hungary
Hungary's chief prosecutor has sought the removal of parliamentary immunity for Prime Minister Péter Mayor, as well as two former ministers from Viktor Orbán's government, in separate cases, according to Ta Nea. This is the first time criminal proceedings have been announced against former members of Orbán governments.
Mayor, the pro-European conservative politician who won April parliamentary elections, ending 16 years of Orbán rule, is accused of theft. According to the charges, in 2024 he seized the mobile phone of a man who was filming him at a nightclub and threw it into the Danube. He has described the investigation as "shameful".
In a video posted to Facebook today, Mayor stated that he wishes parliament to lift his immunity, while simultaneously accusing prosecutors of deliberately "confusing" the cases of the two former ministers with what he called an "attempted political assassination" against him in 2024. It is worth noting that last year, when Mayor was still a Member of the European Parliament, the European Parliament had refused to lift his immunity.
In the two separate cases of the former ministers, Balás Hanko, a Fidesz MP and former Minister of Culture and Innovation, faces charges over alleged misuse of public funds totalling 47 million euros that were used in the 2026 pre-election campaign. In July, prosecutorial authorities seized computers belonging to the party.
The second suspect, Miklós Szesták, an MP for the KDNP — an allied party to Fidesz — and former Minister of National Development, is alleged to have been bribed with millions of euros for the purchase of second-hand buses at inflated prices during the period 2014–2018.
Source: Ta Nea